[Illustration: From the mouth of the dark pit a fetid, foul-smelling
air rushed upward.]
THE
BORDER BOYS
ON THE TRAIL
BY
FREMONT B. DEERING
NEW YORK
HURST & COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1911,
BY
HURST & COMPANY
MADE IN U. S. A.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON THE BORDER 5
II. THE BOYS FIND TROUBLE 21
III. A RACE FOR LIFE 35
IV. THROUGH THE GREAT DARKNESS 48
V. THE RUSTLERS AT WORK 65
VI. TAKING UP THE TRAIL 79
VII. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY 94
VIII. BLACK RAMON'S MISSION 104
IX. A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW 115
X. IN THE BELL TOWER 125
XI. A DROP IN THE DARK 138
XII. A RIDE FOR THE HILLS 150
XIII. THE HERMIT OF THE CAÑON 160
XIV. TRAVELS WITH A MULE 173
XV. A GATEWAY TO FREEDOM 186
XVI. SHORT RATIONS 200
XVII. THE TALE OF A MULE 212
XVIII. THE TREASURE OF THE MISSION 222
XIX. JIM HICKS, PROSPECTOR 234
XX. RALPH A TRUE HERO 247
XXI. AT THE IRRIGATION DAM 262
XXII. A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 278
XXIII. WITH THE RURALES 287
XXIV. THE ROUND-UP 295
* * * * *
The Border Boys on the Trail.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE BORDER.
"Maguez! Maguez!"
The trainmen began hoarsely shouting the curious-sounding name of the
small frontier town near the Mexican border, in the southwest part
of New Mexico. Slowly the long dust-covered Southern Pacific express
rolled imposingly into "Mag-gay," very slowly, in fact, as if it did
not wish to tarry in that desolate, sun-bitten portion of the continent.
As the brakes began to grind down, one of two boys of about seventeen,
who had been lounging on the shady side of a forward sleeper, awoke
from a semi-doze with a start.
"Hullo! somebody wants Maggie!" exclaimed Ralph Stetson, as he gazed
out of the open window. He saw nothing more novel before his eyes,
however, than the same monotonous stretch of yellow, sandy wastes,
sprinkled with sage brush and dotted by a few wandering cattle, which
the train had been traversing for hours.
"You'll have to get used to New Mexican pronunciation of Mexican
names, Ralph," laughed his companion, as he also opened his eyes and
began looking about him in the half-startled manner peculiar to those
abruptly awakened from "forty winks." "'Maggie', as you call it, is our
station."
"Station!" echoed the other. "Where is it?"
He stuck his head out of the window as the train gradually decreased
speed, but his eyes encountered nothing more suggestive of a town than
a stock car on a lonely side track, into which some cowboys, with wild
yells and much spurring of their wiry little steeds, were herding a few
beef cattle.
"That freight car must be in front of the town," muttered the boy,
pulling in his head.
"Over this side, you tenderfoot!" laughed Jack Merrill, pointing out
of the left-hand window. "Haven't you got used to Western towns yet?"
"One-sided towns, you mean, I guess," said Ralph, rising and looking
out in the opposite direction. "Why in the name of the State of New
Mexico do they build all the towns out here at one side of the tracks?"
"So that Easterners can have something to wonder about," laughed Jack
Merrill, brushing off the accumulation of white desert dust from his
dark suit with a big brown hand.
"Or so that they can at least get a few minutes of shade when a train
pulls in," retorted Ralph, gazing at the sun-baked collection of wooden
structures toward which the train was rolling. A yellow water tank,
perched on a steel frame, towered above the town like a sunflower on a
stalk. Apparently it took the place of trees, of which there was not a
vestige, unless a few cactus plants be excepted.
"Better follow my example and brush some of the desert off," said Jack,
still brushing vigorously.
"No, let the porter do it; here he is," said the Eastern Ralph. Sure
enough, with his black face expanded in a grin expectant of tips, the
presiding genius of the Pullman approached.
"Come on, cheer up, Ralph!" laughed Jack, glancing at his companion's
dismal face, which was turned toward the window and its barren view.
"Don't be downcast because my home town isn't surrounded by elms, and
meadows, and fat Jersey cows, and all that. Haven't we lain awake many
a night at Stonefell College, talking over the West, and here you are
in the heart of it."
"Well, it's a good warm heart, anyway!" grumbled Ralph, mopping his
steaming forehead.
The train came to a stop with an abrupt jerk, and followed by the
porter, carrying two new and shiny suitcases, the boys hastened from
the car, into the blinding sunlight which lay blisteringly on Maguez
and its surroundings. Everything quivered in the heat. The boys were
the only passengers to alight.
"Phew, it's like opening an oven door!" exclaimed Ralph, as the heated
atmosphere fell full upon him. "We've come more than two thousand
miles from an Eastern summer to roast out here."
"And look at the train, will you!" cried Jack. "It looks as if it had
been through a snowstorm."
He pointed down the long line of coaches, each of which was powdered
thickly with white dust.
"All ab-oa-rd!"
The conductor's sonorous voice echoed down the train, and with a few
mighty puffs from the laboring engine, the wheels once more began to
revolve. The porter, clutching a tip in his fingers, leaped back on
to his car. All the time they had been waiting in the station the
locomotive had been impatiently blowing off steam, and emitting great
clouds of black smoke, as though in a desperate hurry to get away
from inhospitable-looking Maguez. It now lost no time in getting into
motion. As the cars began to roll by, Jack gave a sudden shout.
"Ralph! The-the professor! We've forgotten him!"
"Good gracious, yes! What could we have been thinking of! We are
getting as absentminded as he is. Here, stop the train! Hey, I say,
we----"
But before the shouts had done resounding, a tall, spare man of middle
age stepped out on the platform of one of the front coaches, and after
gazing about him abstractedly for a few seconds, swung himself off,
landing unsteadily on a pair of long, slender legs. So great was the
shock of the professor's landing that his huge spectacles were jerked
off his prominent nose, and he had all he could do to retain a hold on
a large volume which he held tightly clasped under his left arm.
The boys hurried to pick up the professor's spectacles and hand them to
him.
"We almost lost you, professor!" exclaimed Ralph.
"Ah, boys, I was immersed in the classics--'The Defense of Socrates,'
and----"
"Why, Professor Wintergreen, where is your suitcase?" exclaimed Jack
suddenly. "See--the train is moving, and----"
"Shades of Grecian Plato!" shouted the professor, glancing about him
wildly. "I've forgotten it! Stop! I must get it back! I----"
He made a sudden dash for the train, which was now moving so swiftly
that it was manifestly impossible that he could board it in safety. The
boys both pulled him back, despite his struggles.
Just then, the car which the boys had recently vacated began to glide
by. A black face appeared at the window. It was the porter, and in his
hand he held a large green suitcase. It was the same the professor had
left behind him when he vacated the car in which they had traveled from
the East, and went forward into the smoking car with his book.
"Look out!" yelled the porter, as he threw the piece of baggage out of
the window. It hurtled forth with a vehemence indeed that threatened to
take off the scientist's head, which it narrowly missed.
"Fo' de Lawd!" the porter shouted back, as the train gathered way.
"Wha' yo all got in dat valise--bricks?"
"No, indeed, sir," retorted the professor seriously, as his suitcase
went bounding over the platform, which was formed of sun-baked earth.
"I have books. The idea of such a question. Why should I want to carry
bricks about with me, although the ancient Egyptians----"
By this time the porter was far out of hearing, and the last car of the
train had whizzed by. Before the professor could conclude his speech,
the suitcase--as if to prove his contention as to its contents by
actual proof--burst open, and out rolled several massive volumes. The
few loungers, who had gathered to watch the train come in, set up a
roar of laughter as the professor--his coat flaps flying out behind him
like the tail of some strange bird--darted after his beloved volumes.
"That's what you might call a circulating library!" grinned Jack, as
the books bounded about with the impetus of their fall.
"I thought it was a Carnegie Car, you see----" began Ralph, when a
sudden shout checked him. He glanced up in the direction from which it
had come. A dust-covered buckboard, in which sat a tall, bronzed man in
plainsman's clothes, was dashing toward them. The two buckskin ponies
which drew it were being urged to their utmost speed by the driver, to
whom Jack Merrill was already waving his hand and shouting:
"Hello, dad!"
In the meantime the professor was groping about on the platform,
picking up his scattered treasures, and all the time commenting loudly
to himself on his misfortune.
"Dear, dear!" he exclaimed, picking up one bulky volume and examining
it with solicitude. "Here's a corner broken off Professor Willikin
Williboice's 'The Desert Dwellers of New Mexico, With Some Account
of the Horn Toad Eaters of the Region.' And what have we here? Eheu!
the monumental work of Professor Simeon Sandburr, on the 'Fur-Bearing
Pollywog of the South Polar Regions,' is----"
"Slightly damaged about the back!" broke in a hearty voice behind him.
"But never mind, professor; the pollywogs will grow up into frogs
yet, never fear. We'll soon have those volumes mended; and now let me
introduce myself, as my son Jack seems unable to do so. My name is
Jefferson Merrill, the owner of Agua Caliente Ranch."
"Delighted to meet you, sir," said the professor. "Proud to encounter a
man whose name is not unknown to science in connection with his efforts
to uncover something of the history of the mesa dwellers of this part
of the world."
"Whose relics, if my son informed me rightly in his letters from school
in the East, you have come to study, professor."
"Yes, sir; thanks to your hospitality," rejoined the professor,
imprisoning his recovered volumes with a click of his suitcase clasps;
"it was extremely handsome of you to invite me, and----"
"Not at all, my dear sir, not at all," expostulated the rancher, a
kindly smile spreading on his bronzed features. "Besides," he continued
in his breezy manner, "as Latin professor at Stonefell College you will
no doubt be able to give an eye to your two pupils, and keep them out
of mischief better than I could." Here the professor looked doubtful.
"You see, we're pretty busy now, what with cattle rustlers and----"
"Cattle rustlers, dad!" exclaimed Jack. "Hooray!"
"It's nothing to be enthusiastic over, my boy. Several of the border
ranchers have suffered severely recently from their depredations."
"Have you lost any stock, dad?"
"No; so far, I have luckily escaped. But the rascals may come at any
time, and it keeps me on the lookout. They are well organized, I
believe, and have a stronghold somewhere back across the border. So you
boys will have to depend on your own devices for amusement. But now
come, don't let's stand baking here any longer. There's a long drive
before us, and we had better be getting on."
"But, dad, look at all our baggage!" cried Jack, pointing to the heap
of trunks the baggage car had dropped. "There'll never be room for all
of us in that buckboard."
"So I guessed," smiled his father. "So I had Bud Wilson bring in two
ponies for you boys to ride out on. You told me, I think, that your
friend Ralph, here, could ride."
"Good for you, dad!" exclaimed Jack impulsively; "it'll be fine to get
in the saddle again--and to see old Bud, too," he added.
"Who is Bud?" asked Ralph.
"You'll soon get to know him yourself," laughed Mr. Merrill. "But you
boys go and get your horses. While you are gone the professor and I
will try to get some of these independent gentlemen standing about to
give us a hand to load the trunks on. Then we'll drive on to the ranch.
You can overtake us. Eh, Professor Summerblue?"
"Wintergreen, sir," rejoined the professor in a dignified way.
"Eh--oh, I beg your pardon. I knew it was something to do with the
seasons. I hope you will pardon me, Professor Spring----No, I mean
Wintergreen."
"Just like dad, he never can remember a name," laughed Jack, as the two
boys hastened off to find the ponies and Bud.
"Maybe he is worried about these cattle bustlers----"
"Rustlers, you tenderfoot--you are as bad as dad."
"Well, rustlers, then. They must be desperate characters."
"A lot of sneaking greasers usually. They hustle the cattle or horses
off over the border, but occasionally one of them gets caught and
strung up, and that's the end of it."
"Then there are no border wars any more, or Indians, or----"
"Adventures left in the West," Jack finished for him, laughing at the
other's disappointed tone. Then, more seriously: "Well, Ralph, the West
isn't what it's pictured to be in Wild West shows; but we've plenty
of excitement here once in a while, and before you go back East, with
those lungs of yours in A-one shape, you may experience some of it."
"I hope so," said Ralph, looking up the long dusty street with its
sun-blistered board shacks on either side, with a few disconsolate
ponies tied in front. The yellow water tower topped above it all like
some sort of a misshapen palm tree or sunflower on steel legs. In fact,
a more typical border town than Maguez at noon on a June day could
not be imagined. Except for the buzzing of flies, and the occasional
clatter of a horse's hoofs as some one rode or drove up to the general
store--which, together with a blacksmith shop, a disconsolate-looking
hotel, and a few miscellaneous buildings made up the town--there was
not a sound to disturb the deep, brooding silence of the desert at
noonday. Far on the horizon, like great blue clouds, lay the Sierre de
la Hacheta, in the foothills of which lay Agua Caliente Ranch.
"So this is the desert?" went on Ralph, as they made their way up the
rough wooden sidewalk toward the stable where they expected to find Bud
Wilson and the horses.
"This is it," echoed Jack Merrill, "and the longer you know it the
better you like it."
"It's peaceful as a graveyard, anyhow," commented Ralph. "Doesn't
anything ever happen? I wonder if----"
He broke off suddenly as a startling interruption occurred.
The quiet of Maguez had been rudely shattered by a sudden sound.
Bang!
From a small building to their right, on which was painted in scrawly
red letters the words, "Riztorant. Meelz At Awl Howrz," there had come
the sharp crack of a pistol shot.
Before its echoes had died away, several doors opened along the street,
and a motley crowd of cowboys, Mexicans and blanketed Indians poured
out to ascertain the cause of the excitement.
They had not long to wait. From the door of the restaurant a pig-tailed
Mongolian suddenly shot with the speed of a flying jackrabbit. The
Chinaman cleared the hitching rail in front of the place at one bound,
his progress being hastened from behind by a perfect avalanche of cups
and other dishes.
Bang!
A second shot came, as the Oriental sprinted up the street. All at once
he stopped dead in his tracks as the bullet sang by his ear.
"Well, Ralph, I guess something's happened, after all!" remarked
Jack Merrill, as the crowd began to thicken and the restaurant door
once more opened. This time a strange figure, to Ralph's Eastern
eyes, emerged from the portal. A sinister suggestion was lent to
the newcomer's appearance by the fact that in his right hand there
glistened an exceedingly business-like looking revolver.